


Damien's Journal

by CaliforniaStop



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:24:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3916279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaliforniaStop/pseuds/CaliforniaStop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A piece about Damien and Amanda, the two corpses you find in the sewers beneath Dunwall, locked in a final embrace. Damien left a journal behind detailing how awful things had become for he and Amanda, with the plague, but what happened before they died?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damien's Journal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notthebees](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthebees/gifts).



_I’m ashamed to say that I stole this journal. Tonight, a young man came into the ale house. He had so many books with him. I believe he was a student at the Academy of Natural Philosophy. The collar of his shirt was so high and stiff, we all had a laugh. He had quite a few drinks as he read and scribbled into his notebooks. When we dimmed the lamps, he asked for a wax candle. He left well after everyone else had, cramming his things into a worn satchel. I saw a few pages sticking out – they had strange symbols drawn on them. I went to clear his table and found this book on the floor. I considered going after the young man and returning it, but it’s made of such nice red leather. I think it was dyed in Serkonos. I’ve never seen anything like it in Dunwall. It’s a treasure. He won’t miss it – he hadn’t even written in it._

_\--_

_Today I met someone and I think I could really love her. I was walking along the wharves, where all the ships come in to port. It was so busy and I like watching all the cargo being unloaded. Sometimes, I wonder where all the ships have come from and where they’ll go to later. I’ve never been outside Dunwall but when I go to the harbor, I feel connected, somehow, to the rest of the Empire._

_One of the Pendleton ships had come back from Pandyssia and I watched as the slaves were marched into waiting carts. I’ve heard that most of them will go to work in the silver mines and the rest will be auctioned off to the noble homes._

_I digress: as I walked along, I came to a strip of street stalls. They sell all sorts of fresh food and curiosities. I’m not usually interested in any of it but one hawker was offering live miniature octopi to eat. Apparently, they are a favorite delicacy of the Ladies Boyle. I’ve never eaten_ anything _that was alive before and as I watched those little octopi squirm and writhe in their bucket, I felt ill. She came up to me, then, and asked if I wanted one. Five coin each. They were freshly-caught, she said._

_Outsider’s Eyes, she was beautiful. Brilliant green eyes and long, thick auburn hair and lots of freckles across her cheeks and nose. I think she’s from Morley. She plucked one of the octopi from the bucket, holding it pinched between two fingers, and offered it to me. It was so slimy and its tentacles tickled my palm. But how could I say no? I didn’t want her to think I was weak so I steeled myself and swallowed that little creature whole. Even now, I can still feel it struggling in my throat._

_I paid her five coin and she laughed, like she knew I had only done it to impress her. She told me next time she would fry one on a skewer for me. I’m going back tomorrow._

_\--_

_Amanda. That’s her name._

_I went to the docks after sundown and hoped I would see her again. She was just shutting up her stall, emptying buckets into the water and sealing the rest of the food in ice boxes. She remembered me and told me she didn’t have any octopi for me to eat._

_I asked if she wanted to walk with me for a bit. I’ve never been so bold with a woman before. She seemed to like it, though, and said yes._

_We wandered along the waterfront and told each other about ourselves. She_ is _from Morley but she hasn’t been back since she was young. Her mother was a maid in one of the lesser noble homes and her father works on the whaling trawlers. I told her I didn’t know my parents and that I grew up in an orphanage. She didn’t say very much after that._

_\--_

_Tonight, I found an enormous rat in the storeroom. I’ve never seen anything like it before! Its fur was long and matted, its eyes glinted in the lantern light, and I could hear its teeth gnashing. I think I was actually afraid of it. Eddie made me swear to keep my mouth shut about it. If the Watch hears we’ve got rats they’ll shut us down, he says._

_\--_

_The heat is so unbearable, sticky and suffocating. Dunwall is blanketed in thick black clouds. It’s aching to rain but I don’t know when it will. The air smells so foul but Amanda is sitting by the open window, staring out at the boulevard down below. She looks so lovely right now. I wish I knew how to draw. I’d sketch her. Maybe I’ll practice in the back of this journal._

_We live just outside the Legal District, a couple blocks or so from the waterfront. It’s nice but there have been a lot more gangs hanging around. I told Amanda I don’t want her going out alone at night. I think she resents me for being overprotective, but if anything happened to her—_

_I don’t know what I’d do._

_\--_

_It’s interesting, working in an ale house. All sorts come in during the evening. Sailors and Watchmen try to drink each other under the table. I hear a lot of stories, too, about the other isles; they make me wish I had done something else with my life but the Abbey does teach that there is a place for everyone and society only functions when we don’t think too much about it._

_I should scratch that last part out. I don’t want any Overseers to think I’m being blasphemous…_

_There are a lot of rumours about a plague in Dunwall. It’s spreading through the brothels and boarding houses. I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, except a lot more rats running together in the streets._

_Tonight, a man came in, wild-eyed, and said that he’d seen a whole group of those rats strip a corpse clean in under ten minutes. He says they’re unnatural, a curse from the Outsider._

_\--_

_Amanda lost her job today. They’ve put a blockade around Dunwall, no ships in or out. The harbour-front is off-limits, on the orders of the City Watch. They’re trying to keep the plague at bay, I know they are. The Empress wants us all to remain calm but people are beginning to panic._

_I’ve heard rumours that the nobility have been paying enormous sums of coin for safe passage out of Dunwall._

_Amanda is so worried. Her father is out at sea and she doesn’t know if he’ll be able to get back into the city._

**\--**

_Amanda is pregnant and she’s very ill. I insisted that we visit a real doctor, not one of the barber surgeons, and it cost me a lot. More than we could probably comfortably afford. The doctor says it’s just morning sickness but when we returned home, Amanda said she knew something was wrong._

_I’ve asked her to marry me and she said yes._

_She says that she’s heard the Abbey is halting all services due to the plague. I told her we would get married when things are better._

_\--_

_Today, the Empress was murdered by her bodyguard. I never trusted that Serkonan. He was supposed to bring aid from the other isles and all he brought was death. The heir is missing. The whole city is in mourning. Amanda and I sat by the window and listened to the new street speakers the Lord Regent had installed. None of it bodes well for us._

**\--**

_Amanda’s belly is starting to swell. She doesn’t seem very optimistic and she’s often ill._

_Before the blockade, an old Tyvian sailor used to come into the ale house whenever he was in port. He drank so much but never passed out or pissed himself. He used to say that the people in Tyvia are hardy. Sometimes, when he was more than three sheets to the wind, he would start singing an ancient shanty. I never understood him, or the Tyvian language. All clipped consonants and rolling r-sounds. He said it was about the great leviathans that swam in deep, dark water. He boasted that he’d seen them and that, once, he speared one – a great tentacled creature with glowing bulbous eyes and a sharp, snapping beak._

_I want our baby to be hardy, too, so I’ve started humming that shanty against Amanda’s belly when we’re in bed together in the evening. She strokes my hair. I’ve never been happier than when I’m with her like that._

_\--_

_This morning, I caught Amanda stripping our bed down. The sheets were bloody. She says she think she lost the baby. She says she was up all night bleeding. She started crying and I wanted to hold her but she wouldn’t let me. She locked herself in the bathroom and I heard the tap running._

_She’d left the pillowcases. Hers was spotted with blood. I don’t know what to do._

**\--**

_I’ve been talking with a couple of the boys at work. There are ways to get out of Dunwall, but it costs a lot of coin. Maybe… maybe I could barter something else in exchange for a trip out of the city. We’ve got a couple of bottles of expensive Serkonan sparkling that no one’s touched – there’s no one left in the city to drink it._

_The plague is everywhere, now. All I hear at night is the rats. They’re in the walls. I’ve set traps up but I think they’re too smart to be caught._

_Eddie’s sick, I think. I look at his eyes, like the announcements say to do, but I don’t see any blood. I don’t think it will be long, though._

**\--**

_They closed the ale house today and took Eddie away in one of those rail cars. I’ll never forget the screech of that contraption…_

_I had to empty every single barrel into the street, with two of those Watchmen standing over me. Maybe they think the plague is in our booze. Every time I cracked open another barrel, I was half-expecting a dead rat to come floating to the top. Maybe they would have taken me away, too. I kept thinking about Amanda. I don’t know how to tell her that I don’t have a job. And it’s doubtless I’ll get another one with the city the way it is._

_The Lord Regent wants the entire district quarantined, I’ve heard. People are disappearing from the streets. Every second building has been condemned. Watch Towers and barricades are going up, walling us off from the other districts. Like a bandage on a festering wound._

_None of this would have happened if the Empress was alive._

**\--**

_Amanda is sick. It’s the plague. She has this terrible cough and sometimes her eyes bleed. She looks terrible but—I hope it’s only in the early stages. I was so furious when I found out. How could she have caught it? She doesn’t know. I don’t want to be angry with her but I’m scared. I’m terrified._

_I don’t know what to do. Do I take her to a doctor? I’ve been buying a lot more elixir and insisting she take it. Maybe she can be cured._

_Amanda doesn’t want to take the elixir. She says it’s ‘preventative’ and that it’s useless for her. I think she’s been slipping hers into my food or something. I haven’t seen her take any for a few days now._

_\--_

_Amanda wants me to leave! She barricaded herself into our apartment when I left this morning to pick up our elixir ration. She won’t let me in. I’m sitting inside the hallway. My voice is hoarse from begging her. I’m scared about what she’ll do to herself._

_She wants me to leave. She wants me to let her die, holed up inside our apartment – the apartment we lived in together, the apartment where we wanted to start a family together – like a prisoner. I refuse to leave. I’ll sit here until I’m dust._

_She’s crying now. I can hear her through the walls. I want to be with her. I don’t care about the plague. I don’t. I love her._

_\--_

_I have a little coin I was saving up for our wedding, stashed away under the floorboards. I showed Amanda. I promised her I would buy whatever it took to cure her. I told her I would get us out of Dunwall. She seems… resigned. It breaks my heart. I have never felt this hopeless._

**\--**

_The City Watch came today and evicted us from our apartment. The whole building is now condemned. I don’t know how they knew about Amanda. I think maybe one of the neighbours saw her eyes. I want to be furious but all I can feel is an incredible sadness. We weren’t allowed to take anything with us. “It might be tainted with the plague,” the Watchmen said as they boarded up the front door and painted a large red X. Then, they escorted us past the quarantine checkpoint. I put my arm around Amanda – she was hysterical but I didn’t want them to see her tears turning red – and hurried her away. I know that, given the chance, the Watch will take us to Rudshore._

_It’s late and we’re still on the streets. The Watch are everywhere. We have a few places we could go but they’re inside the quarantine zone and I don’t know if we’ll be able to sneak past the guards. We might be able to bribe them with coin or elixir._

_Amanda has been urging me to leave her, to find somewhere safe to live. She blames herself for what happened. I told her that I would not abandon her. And I won’t._

_\--_

_There’s no whale oil left in the city, or so I’ve heard. All of it’s going to the Regent’s quarantine devices. I saw a man incinerated by one of those Walls of Light. He said his wife and children were inside the quarantine zone and he just wanted to see them. The Watch turned him away so he took a chance… His body simply turned to ash._

_What’s happening to Dunwall?_

_\--_

_If Amanda ever found out that I’m still carrying this journal around, I know she’d be furious. But she wouldn’t understand. I don’t want us to be forgotten._

**\--**

_We’re living in someone else’s apartment. There is no furniture, expect a couple of crusty mattresses standing against the wall. I don’t know what happened to the people here. I don’t want to think about it._

_I want people to know what it’s like for us: we’re starving, we’re cold, we’re scared. We hear the City Watch down in the street. They’re hunting people like us. The loudspeakers are relentless, day and night they blare. I’m sick of the Lord Regent’s voice. He promises things will get better. They still haven’t found the heir. I wonder if Amanda ever thinks of our child whenever she hears the announcements about Emily Kaldwin… I know I do._

_This is how we’ve been living for weeks now, caught between the Watch and the Weepers. That’s what they’re calling the plague-sick. The ones who lose their minds. That’s what happens, apparently. Amanda—she doesn’t say anything but I know she’s scared about what will happen to her._

_\--_

_The streets are so unsafe. People are desperate, for coin and elixir. We haven’t got a lot of either but that doesn’t stop people from trying to rob us._

_I don’t think the supply of elixir will last. There are too many of us who need it. Anyway, it seems to be useless. Sometimes I don’t even know why I keep buying it._

**\--**

_Just now, I felt something tickling my cheek and when I reached up to brush it away, there was blood on my finger. I’m sick but I know I’ve been sick for a long time. Maybe I was just in denial. I just want to keep it a secret from Amanda. I don’t want her worrying. She’s looking worse and worse with each passing day. She’s so weak… Sometimes, she looks at me like she doesn’t even know me. And there’s a smell hanging around her, too, like rotting meat._

_It’s hard to stay hopeful. Sometimes I wonder if we wouldn’t be better off tying our hands together and jumping into the sea._

_\--_

_We found a group of people living in the sewers beneath the city. It’s the most undignified existence but at least we’re safe from the City Watch. I doubt any of them would come down here to round us up and take us to Rudshore._

_A lot of us are sick. It hangs around in a thick cloud. Amanda and I mostly keep to ourselves but there’s not a lot of privacy. There isn’t a lot of elixir either and what we do have, I don’t think it’s very good. It comes from up on Bottle Street, apparently, and it’s cheaper than what comes from the Royal Academy._

_I give all mine to Amanda, though she protests. I tell her I don’t feel sick. I think she knows I’m lying but she’s too weak._

**\--**

_Amanda and I only had enough coin to buy half the elixir we needed. Even that’s all gone now, and there’s nothing to do but wait. We’re very sick and there’s no place above to hide from the City Watch. They’re breaking into houses all over our district. So we’ll stay here and share the last hours together. Our fire will keep the rats away, but they’ll inherit this city._

Damien stilled his trembling hand as a droplet of dark blood fell from his eye and splattered onto the water-logged page. He reached up, brushing his knuckle across his lower lashes, and stared at the smear of red on his skin. He sniffled and tasted bitter iron at the back of his throat. With a shuddering sigh of resignation, he signed his name at the bottom of the page, a final reminder of his existence. Then, he shut the journal and tossed it aside.

Amanda knelt at the canal, splashing stagnant sewer water on her face. He knew she was trying desperately to clear her streaming eyes. He called her over, his voice a weak rasp of sound just barely audible above the squeaking of the rats.

She crawled to him on her hands and knees and his heart broke at the sight of her face, half-shadowed in the flickering firelight: her eyes were red-rimmed, cloudy; her skin was the colour of the riverwater that ran along the edges of the harbor-front. He reached up and brushed her matted hair behind her ear.

“I love you, Amanda,” he said.

Her eyes started streaming again.

“Come here,” he said, leaning back against the cold wall. The slimy film that coated the bricks seeped through his jacket and chilled his skin, but he didn’t care. Soon, it wouldn’t matter.

“I love you, Damien.”

They kissed, their rotten breath mingling as they desperately sought one last vestige of warmth and kindness from the other. He drew her onto his lap and she tucked her head against his shoulder. She looped her arms around his neck in a final, weak embrace.

Damien pressed soft kisses to the strands of hair at the crown of her head, his eyelids drooping. Amanda’s body sagged against his as she fell into a doze – or maybe unconsciousness. The firelight flickered weakly as their kindling burned to ash. The rats watched as he struggled to remain conscious, struggled to keep Amanda’s limp body pressed to his. Their eyes glimmered faintly from the shadows that melted in the corners of the sewers. After a time, Damien closed his eyes, and the rats raised their noses to the air at the fresh scent of death.


End file.
